First Spy Chief of Independent Singapore, Tay Seow Huah

Simon Tay, Enigmas: Tay Seow Huah, My Father, Singapore's Pioneer Spy Chief (Singapore: Landmark Books, 2024). (From National Library Singapore, call no. RSING 327.12092 TAY)

S.R. Nathan, An Unexpected Journey: Path to the Presidency (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2011). (From National Library Singapore, call no. RSING 959.5705092 NAT)

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Simon for coming on the show.

The BiblioAsia Podcast by the National Library Singapore tells stories about Singapore history.

Simon
My father in 1965 got a call from Mr Lee Kuan Yew at the helm of the newly independent republic, and basically got told to head the Special Branch. Why him? Well, prior to this, he was the port manager at the [Singapore] Harbour Board, today, the Maritime Port Authority and in between that, the PSA [Port Authority of Singapore]. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
How did a port manager in charge of human resources get entrusted by Mr Lee to head the Special Branch? And that’s where a lot of the writing about his pre-Laju career, I have to sort of delve and in a way speculate. One of the speculations was that he was involved in politics of the highest order. At that time, the port and the unions were riddled with leftists and there was a huge tension. A strike or closure of the port would have been ruinous for Singapore. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
The port is in the ward of Tanjong Pagar, which is the heart of Lee Kuan Yew’s constituency. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
So in many senses it was highly precise. 
[Music playing] 

Jimmy
You’re listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia, we tell stories about Singapore’s past. Some familiar, others forgotten, all fascinating. 

Jimmy
In January 1974, four hijackers attempted to blow up Shell’s oil installation, Pulau Bukom. Fortunately, they failed to cause as much damage as they had hoped. However while trying to escape, they hijacked a passenger ferry, the Laju and took five hostages. The subsequent eight-day standoff was resolved with no loss of life, but it could have all gone very differently. This event is closely associated with future President S.R. Nathan, who helped to manage the situation, went as far as travelling with the four hijackers to Kuwait to guarantee the safe passage out of Singapore. 

However, little is known about the man who was instrumental in heading Singapore’s response to this whole thing: Tay Seow Huah, the Permanent Secretary in the Home Affairs Ministry at the time. 

If you look at his very short Wikipedia page, all it says is that he was involved in the Laju incident. The short Wikipedia page is understandable given that as the founding director of the Security and Intelligence Division, much of his work has been shrouded in secrecy. Then there’s also the fact that he died at 47, the prime of his life. 

However, thanks to his son, we now have a slightly more detailed account of one of Singapore’s pioneer civil servants. His son has penned a book, Enigmas: Tay Seow Huah, My Father, Singapore’s Pioneer Spy Chief. The author is no ordinary writer, though. He is Simon Tay, former Nominated MP, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and an associate professor teaching international law at the National University of Singapore. In addition, he’s also won the Singapore Literature Prize and the Southeast Asia Write Prize. Welcome to BiblioAsia+, Simon. Thank you very much for coming today. How are you? 

Simon
Thank you very much for inviting me. I’m always delighted when people are interested in a book which is published in 2024. 

Jimmy
Which is actually like the almost 50th anniversary of the Laju hijacking, as it were. 

Simon
In fact, I was also very happy. That same year, the government decided to softly mark that with a closed but meaningful event held at the Ministry of Defence. I can’t say more. 

Jimmy
Okay, but you were there, obviously. You were there. 

Simon
Some of the actual people who were handling it. 

Jimmy
Oh. 

Simon
Officers who did it. And of course, the present-day counterparts, because I think that message of 1974 isn’t just the past. It’s something that is important to remember. The unity of our different forces need[ed] to keep a certain vigilance and dedication to work in many areas. And of course, the spark of that problem in 1974. What is the problem with the Middle East? The Palestine issue. 

Jimmy
Yeah, still very much with us today. 

Simon
Exactly. It’s not erased, it’s revived. Our region could see. I’m not hoping, but I think the region could see some turmoil. I was glad to see our government take the 50th event not to celebrate, but commemorate a very serious event and remind its staff and overall public that this needs attention. 

Jimmy
Congratulations on writing the book. I mean, it can’t have been easy. Your father died when you were what, 19? 

Simon
Few people will know th[eir] children as well as the father, and the other way around. 

Jimmy
True. Yes. That’s true. 

Simon
And we, particularly after his massive heart attack, had time to talk about many dark, serious things. Which is, of course, quite disturbing when you’re going through your own teenage years. 

Jimmy
Yes. 

Simon
You have to correct the facts of his work. It was very hard. When the 50th anniversary of Singapore was coming up, it [brought up] issues like the SID [Security and Intelligence Division] and internal security as well. I would often encounter the 50th anniversary, [since] my father was the founder for the SID. They held little events and they asked me to write an essay, which until today, is held confidential. 

Jimmy
Okay. 

Simon
But they said don’t worry, we’ll help you. At that time, my father was the only one that passed on. So I was asked to write and they said his staff will send some thoughts about him. All they told me was he was quite a good boss, you know. Always took time with them. I mean, all very nice things. 

Jimmy
Yes. 

Simon
Like they of course, never said a word about the actual work. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
Mr Nathan has a very long memoir as president. 

Jimmy
Yes. 

Simon
And if you look through that memoir, Laju was mentioned but the work of the Security Integrity Division, which he headed after my father, that’s said to be like one page and one sentence. [He] sums it up that in the national interest of Singapore, he hopes you understand he’s not going to write about it. 

Jimmy
Okay. It’s very disappointing for the readers because we don’t get any meat. But I suppose we’ll have to make do with what we get. 
Can I ask you, how did this book come about? Because it came out, you know, in 2024, how did all this happen? 

Simon
Well, I think that I’ve always been a writer. My father in fact encouraged my writing.
And so when you write, you deal with things you kind of know or want to know. And having lost my father when I was 19, I did want to understand him more deeply. So it was always in my mind that should I write a book and one can look back at some of my own writing, City of Small Blessings, my novel, and that all men know all that my father would have been, could more or less live through some of the same tropes that my father went through.
So imaginatively, I was always trying to figure out the trajectory my father had, or people his generation had. And of course, the second thing was that there was this thing called the pandemic. 

Jimmy
Yes, I seem to remember that. 

Simon
You know, I mean, there’s a lot of global suffering. But for those of us who didn’t. 

Jimmy
We were more fortunate. Yes. 

Simon
I’m well sheltered from that. At times, I think you can either watch a lot of Netflix and snack yourself to death or you could try to do something. And I thought, try to write about my father. 

Jimmy
So how long did it take then? 

Simon
I wrote it in stretches, so maybe about 18 months for the actual writing. 

Jimmy
Wow. 

Simon
But of course, it’s the time to go through the editing, the writing parts etc. 

Jimmy
Your father helmed Singapore’s response, the Laju hijacking but I think that maybe if for the benefit of the people who [are] a little bit younger, they may not know very much about the Laju hijacking. Could you tell us a little bit about the Laju hijacking? 

Simon
So basically, I guess you have to call them terrorists. They took to them a noble cause. Two from Japan and two from the Middle East, from the Arabs, were very taken up by the Palestinian cause.

And they also saw that there was anger against America as an ally of Israel and a weakness, America suffering in our region, the Vietnam War. And in that tumultuous time, there was also the oil shock. And so they felt that if they could take out, literally blow up the Bukom refinery, they would be striking a blow against international capitalism, against America. 

The oil from that refinery was the one that is fuelling the trucks and tanks of the Americans in the Vietnam War— 

Jimmy
Oh, right. 

Simon
—is the major refinery of our region. And so for all those reasons, they attacked Singapore. They weren’t attacking Singapore per se. It was just the installation in Singapore. And this of course, has to be seen in a context of the time. 

Singapore had not even finished its first decade of independence. 

Jimmy
That’s right. 

Simon
Singapore Airlines was getting its first planes, you know, and our overall capability, our resources were far thinner. And so when they hijacked the Laju ferry and held these people hostage, there was a long standoff accentuated by the fact that they wanted to be flown out. And I think the calculation of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, our prime minister at the time, flowed down to my father, was that we had to negotiate a way out. 

We couldn’t be too soft because then we might be struck again. But unlike the Munich incident where they tried to shoot the terrorists and it all went very badly, we didn’t want too harsh a response. Otherwise, there would be anger among the Muslim world and we would open ourselves to more attacks. So that was a fine calibrated balance. Besides the otherwise standoff at sea, which I feel was a bit boring. You know, watching boats bobbing up and down the water. 

Jimmy
Because you couldn’t see very much. 

Simon
There’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes. 

Jimmy
Yeah. 

Simon
And I think it has helped Singapore well. So that you see that though we are really a hub for a lot of multinationals and American money, Americans are invested more in Singapore than any other part of Southeast Asia. 

You know, we have not become so much targeted again until of course, the post-9/11 period. 

Jimmy
Can I ask you know, Lee Kuan Yew, the prime minister then, placed your father in charge of the negotiations with the terrorists and dealing with the media. What do you think gave Lee Kuan Yew that confidence in your father? 

Simon
I’m not sure I have the confidence to speak on behalf of Lee Kuan Yew. 

Jimmy
But as his son, you can say something nice about your father. 

Simon
Yeah, well, I could tell the facts. My father in 1965 got a call from Mr Lee Kuan Yew at the helm of the newly independent republic, and basically got told to head the Special Branch. Why him? Well prior to this, he was the port manager at the Harbour Board, today the Maritime Port Authority and in between that, the PSA. 

Jimmy
Right? 

Simon
How did a port manager in charge of human resources get entrusted by Mr Lee to head the Special Branch? And that’s where a lot of the writing about his pre-Laju career, I have to sort of delve and in a way speculate. One of the speculations was that he was involved in politics of the highest order. At that time, the port and the unions were riddled with leftists and there was a huge tension. A strike or closure of the port would have been ruinous for Singapore. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
The port is in the ward of Tanjong Pagar, which is the heart of Lee Kuan Yew’s constituency. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
So in many senses it was highly precise. When Mr Lee met the Port Union workers, the only civil servant in the room as far as the records show, was my father. 

Jimmy
Okay. 

Simon
I think that trust in handling highly politically dangerous situations grew between Mr Lee and my civil servant father. My father was not a politician. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
And then when this special branch evolved, my father was entrusted to split the Special Branch into two parts. The Security Services Division took outwards, and the Internal Security Division to deal with internal issues at that time was under a single ministry, the Ministry of Interior and Defence. And my father therefore headed both agencies. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
I think that gave a lot of background to his experience as being, as the title of the book suggests, the pioneer spy chief of Singapore. 

And so [in] 1974, he was seriously the man that Mr Lee called. 

Jimmy
Well, what struck me really was the youth of all the main protagonists. Right. Mr Lee, your father. Your father was how old at the time? 

Simon
He was 41. The founding generation were thrown into the deep end, right? You know, I mean they had to really make Singapore succeed, or there would be no turning back. And my father felt this strongly because he had come down to Singapore for university. 

He actually was born in the north of Malaya. And he had a choice, I guess, of joining Malaysia or Singapore, but he opted to be here. They were awfully brave because they really had not many choices. 

Jimmy
What also struck me was that reading it was a very detailed account. You know, your account of what your father was dealing with, the hostage situation. It was actually a very fairly detailed account. And I was just reading Mr Nathan’s biography, and he has some information and presumably the press you know, would have covered what they could see and what they were told.

I always felt like you had an insight into what he was doing in that office in Kallang.

I’m sure the security agency wasn’t anxious to open their file for you. 

Simon
I cannot ask them to. And if they did, maybe so many more requests. I mean, the National Archives obviously know this. I would say first, you are actually correct. There is a lot of information, but the Laju is just scattered and sometimes needs to be reconciled. 

So Mr Nathan’s book was a good resource for me. I knew Mr Nathan when I was a child. My father and he were friends from the first years of civil service. When I grew up, I called him Uncle Nathan. And I would ask his family and speak to his son about that same age, about what he could remember. 

And Mr Nathan’s book was in great detail. Of course, the newspapers covered it. And not just the Singapore newspapers, the New York Times, Japan’s side because the Japanese terrorists who were in the Red Army were involved. And of course, the archives loyally had the transcripts of all the press statements. 

Jimmy
Oh, okay. 

Simon
Even down to the off-the-cuff remarks my father would make. Every night, he would be like in the pandemic, you had you know, Lawrence Wong and Gan Kim Yong. Similarly, every night of those times, they had press. 

Jimmy
All right. Okay. 

Simon
And I think the last bit of. I could polish my own apple. 

I would have to say, I’m a story writer. I’ve written literature. I mean, I’m deeply interested in facts, but weaving the facts together in a way that gives us a sense of life. 

What you previously said is the very short Wikipedia entries or even the Laju affair, or Laju incident. Really very terse. So I wanted to give it life, and I put it in front of the book because I thought that was the most spy-like story. 

Secondly, it was, in a way, a culmination of many things my father had done in the decades before his career as a pioneer civil servant paired him to serve Singapore and its function. And also after this, he had a massive heart attack and both his life and career went sharply downhill. 

Jimmy
Eventually, you know, talking about, I guess we all know that President Nathan, you know, was one of a team of Singaporeans who accompanied the four hijackers to Kuwait. To guarantee their safety. And I think your father was or was perhaps possibly one of those people who was supposed to have gone on, but didn’t. 

In your book, you talk about that. 

Simon
I do, I first of all want to thank the late Mr Nathan for himself and his book. Acknowledging that the person who told him about Laju was my father, my father had come out of Istana and the first person called was Mr Nathan. 

Now, this already was a bit odd. Mr Nathan was then in charge of security intelligence, the outward looking. And the person, the internal security, which seems to have been the more logical person. Mr Nathan, himself raised it, but I think going back to why I said my father and Mr Nathan have worked together before. And when you face a crunch, I think it is a good instinct of the pioneers and I think we shouldn’t give it up. 

It’s really turned to people you know and trust. I’m awfully glad Singapore’s quite a small place. People have worked together in different roles for many decades, and that unity, that trust is critical in times, turns really sharply. And then to your question, why wasn’t my father allowed to go on board? We really don’t know until they declassify the information. 

But as a son, as a memoir of a son, I managed to sort of use stuff we heard around the dining table because we asked my dad the same thing. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
I found him awfully brave in many ways, almost foolhardy at times, the things he pushed himself to do. So it naturally arose, and we were told not just by him, but by others in that circle that my father had offered. 

And Prime Minister Lee had said, you’re the one really negotiating with them. You might have really pissed them off. 

Jimmy
Right. Okay. 

Simon
And they could once you’re out of Singapore, they could find something, stab you, beat you up, shoot you in the head. There’s nothing you can do. Mr Nathan had some visits to the boat but he had not been in charge of negotiations. 

He’d been very helpful. 

And so I think, the trust level, and of course the ISD director, also went on board that flight as did a few unmarked commandos in case things turned rough. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
There was some beefy, strong people. 

Jimmy
I have to say, I mean, hats off to all the civil servants who actually volunteer[ed] to get on that flight, some of whom didn’t have time to even inform their loved ones. 

Simon
Yes. I was delighted to meet them in the Laju 50 held by the Ministry of Defence. 

Jimmy
Really, hats off to them. Really amazing, an amazing incident. You talked about, you know, your father being foolhardy. Actually that gives us, allows us to segue into talking about your father. You know, what did a boy from Penang think? 

Simon
I was born in Penang and grew up in Taiping. 

Jimmy
Born in Penang, grew up in Taiping. Grew up during the hardship of the Japanese occupation. 

How did he then, you know, end up in Singapore and become the head of the Special Branch? 

Simon
Well I think the record suggests that he was highly intelligent. He was the top student, was also able to play lots of sports while also still being the top boy and winning a state scholarship. I mentioned foolhardy cause he had this certain reckless streak about him. 

Race, motorbikes, all kinds of sports, really active life. And he had this voracious appetite for life. 

So I think when he came down to Singapore, he really felt that pace of the years that accelerated towards independence. You’re caught up in that milieu. Secondly, his father had been killed in World War Two by the Japanese. 

I don’t mean to, you know, overgeneralise it, but you look at a lot of the security agencies, a typical profile there is a kind of loss of a parent or some disruption and need to cope with it lacking. So I think he was looking for avenues. He threw himself into a lot of things and then he struggled at times. He actually left university at first without an honours degree. 

Jimmy
Yeah, I read about that. He only had a general degree, right? 

Simon
Some disagreement with his academic supervisors. As a professor myself, I don’t approve of this. All students should listen to their academic supervisors. 

Jimmy
He was in economics, right? 

Simon
He wanted to do economics as his honours. But he had some struggles about it. 

And then he went off to Malaysia and this part is truly mysterious. Sometimes part of the family says he was there to teach, part-time teacher at Port Dickson. Others thought that he was helping the British military forces with the last of the internment camps they had, and it’s clear that he went on the kind of long extended hike with a bunch of military officers. 

And so my book speculates that perhaps he was looking for some entry into either the military or some sort of other relationship with the security military apparatus. In the end, he came back to Singapore and did his honours and ended up in the civil service. 

Jimmy
You mentioned that he was hoping to go to [the Royal Military Academy] Sandhurst. Was that something that he mentioned to you? 

Simon
Yes. That’s part of the family history. Of course. We’re kind of glad he didn’t, because he was a Malayan. I never say the word Malaysian because really, he grew up in the ideal of Malaya, like Mr Lee, as being non-racial. 

Simon
Truly multiracial Malaya. And so he had this idea that as the British were leaving, a relatively smart guy, if he got to Sandhurst and had a degree, could go up. 

But the Malaysia that has developed, you can’t imagine a Chinese man being anywhere near the top of the military. 

Jimmy
And of course, he ends up joining the Special Branch, starting up the SID and as you say, he was described as Singapore’s pioneer spy chief. So how different is he from James Bond? That’s all that everybody wants to know. 

Is he James Bond? 

Simon
Well, James Bond, as far as the record shows, was never the spy chief. 

Jimmy
That’s true, that’s true. So your father was not a spy, but a spy chief. 

Simon
Exactly. I think it’s a very important thing to note. And of course, the subsequent ones came like Mr Nathan, Mr Eddie Teow, who’s still around and in fact, the chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisers. They don’t physically look anything like a spy. 

My father happens to be quite tall for his generation. Broad shouldered, drove fast cars, scuba dived. So somehow people had this sense if they knew what he was doing, he himself was doing something mysterious. Now the book does mention that he wasn’t just a desk director. He’d go on the field, meet his officers, meet his team. 

But there’s aptly zero record of them actually engaging in spying. 

Jimmy
Right. Right. 

Simon
But to be fair, intelligence then and today. A lot of it is open source. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
A lot of it is what they call the gin and tonic circuit. You know, just talking to people in different core and other contexts you have. 

Jimmy
Right. Okay. That’s it. That’s a bit disappointing. I have to say. 

Simon
I should say that this is the official version. One would never know until all the archives declassify everything. 

Jimmy
You know, when you were researching this book, what did you learn that surprised you? Because, I mean clearly, you knew a lot about your father growing up with him. And as you say, after his heart attack, you had that chance to sit down and spend time with him. But you must have uncovered other things when you were researching it, that maybe was surprising to you. 

Simon
Well, I must say that I must give kudos to the National Archives. There’s a lot of things here that I was able to track down a little bit. I’m not a professional historian, but it was fairly accessible. And so it was more trying to make a coherent story, making sense of the facts, like what I said about him going to Port Dickson. 

Laju, eight days of tension after it is clear that they’re getting on the plane. Why was he there? What is he doing? Climbing Gunung Tahan with a bunch of military British officers. Why was he sent from the port to the Special Branch? So all these things had to be knitted together in a way. The surprises actually were quite innocent. For example, at the end of this, it’s in the records that he told a joke. He subtly said that one of the terrorists said that he was sorry to cause Singapore problems, that he hoped to come back to Singapore one day as a tourist. 

Jimmy
Okay. 

Simon
My father mildly remarked, “It’s wonderful, please let us know when you intend to come.” 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
Then, of course, you know in a moment of tension that even a slightly funny joke like that gets really amplified in that very tense room. 

So in a sense, I gave it colour. But the archives, the records had the colour. It is a bit like an old painting. You just had to kind of dust it off, refurbish it a bit. 

I mean, the pioneers, not just my father, lived vividly. They had no work life balance, ideas. 

Jimmy
Yeah. I think in that sense. Right. 

Simon
They were just going full on, at least the ones that were in my father’s circle, the ones who decided to really try to help Singapore and were given the licence to do so in different fields. 

So I’m delighted to see not only my writing get some recognition, but other books. It was my pleasure to know Mr Lee, he was the National Environment Agency chairman. I didn’t know some of the things that came out in his book. I grew up calling Mr Sim Kee Boon, Uncle Kee Boon as well. I’m delighted to have his grandchild, a professional writer who came up with a book about him. 

Simon
So I think that besides the really great leaders like Mr Lee and Dr Goh, I think not just my father, but this group of pioneers does need to be honoured to be remembered. 

Jimmy
I think so, I think so. Can I ask you know, what I really found refreshing reading your book was that you acknowledge that actually unlike a lot of people writing a history, you acknowledge that there’s some ambiguity in that. Some people’s memories are not necessarily always reliable in your memory versus somebody else’s memory. You know, how do you deal with that when that happens? 

Simon
I think that’s the good thing about the modern ideas of history. And what we think of as facts and so on. And of course, being the fictional writer part of a lawyer, I’m interested in both. How do we prove something to be true? And so a lot of the things are put in. I couldn’t stand up in court because I don’t really have the first-hand witness. 

Jimmy
Yes. 

Simon
And I couldn’t access the archives. So a lot of it is actually from the newspapers. And there are mistakes, sometimes very small ones. For example, some newspaper articles based on something the Japanese ambassador from Singapore, said they have machine guns. There are just gaps. 

My father at the time was Permanent Secretary, so Laju was not the only thing he did. He did a whole bunch of things reforming the police, the prisons. You know what a Permanent Secretary does: set policies. But this is very hard to tell because the police commissioner is in charge of the police. So what is the role of permanent secretary? I think that all those are gaps. You certainly need some intuition and perhaps some sense of how a government operates. 

Jimmy
I’d like to talk a little bit about your father and your own relationship with your father. 

He died when you were 19. He was 47. What was he like with you growing up? You know, and I think that changed over time. 

Simon
I think all parents hopefully are heroes to their children. And my father, I think, was very much a hero to myself, and my sister greatly loved him. And that voracious, energetic, you know, so in the book I read about how he would take us out, organise games for us at home, out, and then sometimes he would fall asleep, exhausted from both work and then this full on, sort of weekend and evening activities and suddenly he would bolt awake and say, “Where are we going next? Why should we go down to Changi?” You know, and we were living in Mount Pleasant Road in the government civil servants, black and white, so we were really enthralled by him. We wanted to spend time, but he had very little time. 

Jimmy
But, you know, he didn’t seem like an absent father. 

Simon
Didn’t have a lot of time, but he would all intervene in different ways. My sister remembers that one of the first years she was in school, she had, I think a tooth break in class or fell. 

It fell out. And the teacher said she has to go to the dentist now. My father signed out from SID or whatever it was, and he came down to school, took her to the clinic. Similarly, when I was 13, I wrote an essay about the enemy and it had a torture scene, and my teacher had graded me A at first because I’m not a bad writer. 

But then the teacher decided I was a D and had commented “You are a sadist.” My father turned up in school without telling me and said, “You know this happened, right? It’s not that my son’s a sadist like you were saying. This is just factual.” I didn’t get a better grade, but it was just that he took the bother to come down to school and stand up for me. Of course, on behalf of teachers everywhere, I think this behaviour is appalling. 

Jimmy
As a parent. 

Simon
Yeah but I think also I probably would like to think I would do the same for my son if I felt my son was not fairly treated. 

But I think one of the biggest changes happened after his heart attack, he wasn’t the same person. And that also coincided with a lot of soul searching he did, you know, he really had a massive heart attack. Almost died in his office. Stabilised and flown off to America for one of those not of stent operations, but really like saw your ribcage and half open-heart surgery and never fully recovers his energy level. Medicine at that time was not what it is today. And in that he also faced personal turmoil. I think my mother and him had drifted apart. And then the government took the very unsentimental decision to retire him early on medical grounds. And so he had a career, personal and other tumult. 

By this time I was also in my mid-teens. I was going through my own, you know, adolescence, questioning. I was writing poetry, which was a very bad habit. 

So all of this came together. We had some very deep, memorable discussions. I recall, in a way, and at the end of the book and in a kind of a fictive way. But they weren’t necessarily very pleasant all the time. 

They would, I mean, I did feel the loss of family and why he had sort of left the house. 

Jimmy
Oh. You must have been devastated. 

Simon
But I’m glad I wrote it when I’m older because, you know, I’m still working. But you get to the point where you can understand how people feel when your job is taken away from you. As you said earlier, at the prime of his life, he should have been going up, suddenly his heart attack changed his circumstances completely. 

And I use Dante’s life and his poem Inferno and Dark Woods. I think he went through a lot. I don’t mean to talk about people unfairly, but one sort of parallel was the late Professor Wong Lin Ken, who was a minister, my father’s minister. And he had gone back to university because I think somebody higher up decided he wouldn’t be good enough. 

Good enough for a professor, but not to be a minister. And during that period, that dark woods, Professor Wong, as a matter of public record, committed suicide. And so I think my father, like all of us at times, will face very dark moments. And I hope that like my father, people get through their own processes. 

And of course, today you’d recommend counselling and a dozen other things, right? But at times some things you face, you face alone. 

Jimmy
What other thing that struck me, reading your account was your grandmother, your father’s mother, was a very strong woman. And yet I also sense that you were not maybe her biggest fan, but I mean, what she had to go through during the Japanese occupation was really amazing. 

Simon
Yeah, I think in this book, besides telling this tale of my father and my own tales, his son and my family, I think it is partly a tale of his family and his mother. I’ve written about her in fiction, as I mentioned in this book, Enigmas, where I’ve not been very kind to her. 

I have a short story called “My Grandmother: A Horror Story or Ghost Story”, likening her to Freddy Kruger. 

Jimmy
Right. Okay. 

Simon
She was a tyrant. And she overwhelmed my mother and tried to dictate to all of us whenever she was in the house. But in writing Enigmas, I think the psyche. 

So I examine what life was like to be a widow in World War Two with seven children, and somehow hold the family together. The very attributes that enabled her to do that became the nastier elements of strength, the isolated strength of heroism, and that commanding presence my father would and all the children would always be quite servile with her. 

Jimmy
I definitely got that sense that, you know, just initially reading it, there was a lot of admiration for your grandmother and what she had achieved. But then subsequently, then reading it, say how you were very subtly also saying she was not necessarily the world’s nicest person. 

Simon
I think that generation went through a lot. We haven’t been in those really hard times. 

Simon
My father, for example, loved to eat well, both at local food but also he tried every single fancy restaurant of the time. I think about the government budget, I’m not sure because he was entertaining quite a lot of visitors from different countries, etc. 

Why? Is it just because he is a foodie like today? Well, I also tell you that in World War Two at one point, the family was so desperate they put him on some scrap, hardscrabble farm in Malaysia. And then he had to go to the marketplace and sell kueh. And he was so hungry he stole some of the kueh, ran off and ate it. 

And his uncle, who was supposed to make money out of this thing, threatened to beat him up. 

Afterwards you can say it’s such a lovely thing that Singapore succeeded. He succeeded enough to go to like top restaurants of the 70s, windows of the world in New York and other places like that. But not everyone’s story ends up so happily, I guess. 

Jimmy
In Enigmas, you actually talk about a party trick your father used to do. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that. 

Simon
He was a very strong, broad shouldered aesthetic man. But one thing that if you look to it as closely, as we did as children, you’d see that actually, one of his fingers was a little stubble finger. 

Jimmy
On his left hand, right? 

Simon
Left hand. It was a result of a very bad infection he had in World War Two on that hardscrabble farm. And he was trying, as a city boy, town boy to actually make a farm work. And he got infected. His uncle didn’t take care of it. In the end, he had the operation, septicaemia almost took out the bone. 

So his finger was always short and spatulate. Like a cartoon figure that gets crushed by a rock. And then he hoped to spring back, but never quite. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
And so he had this little trick where he makes the finger appear to be like, you know, this, you know how everyone does it. So it makes your fingers broken and sliding. 

But after that, he shows the spatula finger and the children gasp in horror. But this is a bigger sign of my father. He had the ability to make people laugh, besides analysing, dealing with tense situations. A bit like that joke at the end of the press conference, he found certain joy, humour. Making fun of things were ways of dealing with them rather than just taking things so seriously all the time. And he was a serious man. He wasn’t a stand-up comedian. But he had this streak in him, and that allowed him also to get on with many people. 

Jimmy
Right.

Simon
So while he was the spy chief of Singapore, he wasn’t always shrouded in mystery and speaking like a Delphic oracle. 

Jimmy
Speaking of Delphic oracles, I have a very important question to ask you, because you’re a writer, you’re a legal academic. You’re chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, and you’ve probably actually gone to Delphi yourself. 

Simon
I am going to Delphi in about a week. I’m speaking at the forum there. 

Jimmy
And you are Singapore’s ambassador to Greece. 

Simon
Yes. 

Jimmy
So my important question to you is how do you find the time to do all this? What is your time management secret? 

Simon
Well, I’m not sure if I’m actually good at balancing or managing time. My father, first of all, he named me in Chinese, a name which means noble aspiration, after a Chinese legend of a general who wants to serve the country and actually, he didn’t know Mandarin very well, but he was for a time a labour court magistrate. 

So you got the interpreters to suggest some names. So that’s where my Chinese name came from. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
More than the naming, I think his example of trying to figure out. Can you help our country? What could you contribute? So I haven’t been the spy chief, but I tried to find ways of contributing to Singapore as much as I could. 

I could never join the party for my own personal reasons. But I’ve tried to live a public life. I’m delighted to serve our government, which I have no problem serving. But I just didn’t want to join the ruling party. I do admire what they’ve done for Singapore. 

Similarly, my father was a civil servant, but he left under medical care and some grumbling. 

So, friends of family after he passed, suggested if I was keen to serve the government, I should go and talk to his very good friend, another man I used to call uncle. I don’t call many people my uncle. Uncle George Bogaars, the first head of our civil service. Mr Bogaars by the time I saw him in the 80s, was really quiet, also retired from everything. And he advised me not to join the civil service. He thought it wasn’t the same as the pioneering days. 

I’m not saying it’s not a good way to serve, but I think he’s right. I think there is a certain freedom. There were no operating procedures. The pioneers would have to find his own way. Therefore, the civil service today is much more structured, much more capable and capacity, but much more. Also, rules may not suit everyone. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
I daresay that a lot of the pioneer civil servants’ children haven’t been in the civil service, but hopefully they’ll all be contributing to Singapore in some way. 

Jimmy
Looking at all your different paths, how do you feel your father has influenced you in being a lawyer, a writer, maybe not an ambassador to Greece, but you know? 

Simon
Well, I think when I was 19 and he passed on, the one thing that he did really helped me with was my writing. 

Jimmy
Oh. 

Simon
When I started writing, he bought me a typewriter because it looks more professional than scribbling. And he would read them. He liked himself. And he had a very good friend from early on, Professor Edwin Thumboo, who is one of Singapore’s perhaps most famous poets. And so I was very lucky that, because of the family relationship, Professor Thumboo eyeballed my young writing early on. And the year my father passed on, I published my first book of poetry, Prism. 

Jimmy
Oh.

Simon
It was actually later I realised it was actually privately financed by my father, printed out. And so he had very nicely asked his friends to buy it, trying to recoup his losses I guess. But overall, I think he was very supportive of that. The rest, I think he told me not to become a journalist. 

Jimmy
Okay. 

Simon
I think he did respect them and he had to deal with a lot of journalists, but he just felt it was not something that he thought was good to do in our region in those days. 

And, otherwise, you know, I think he left us too early. Similarly, when I became a father, it was never my role to suggest even strongly to my son what he should be doing. And it’s up to him to make his choices. 

Jimmy
Although I can say that being the head of the SID, obviously your father then had to be looking outwards. And actually in a lot of your career, that is part of what you do, isn’t it? 

Simon
Yes, I think, I hope I’m not a nepo baby. Some interests, I mean, around the dining table besides catching up about school and everything else and what to do, what to eat for that weekend, we would talk about politics. 

When I was a child, the Israeli advisors would be in our house and their children became friends and my father’s family was quite friendly. Drank beer on the lawn with the advisors, and we would talk about Middle East, global, and the US embassy would come by. So in a sense, just like a child whose parents are a doctor would hear medical stories or a child whose father’s a lawyer, he had law stories. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
I heard a lot of international issues around the table. This isn’t in the book, but I can remember, once I think about primary six going to school and my teacher was talking about the Middle East war, Israel, blah blah. And I said no, Israel is not going to lose this war. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Simon
He said, “What, Time magazine said this.” I said, “No, my father told me this.” You know, you have a lot of faith in your parents. 

Jimmy
Of course you do. 

Simon
And sometimes it’s well deserved. 

Jimmy
You’ve completed this book. What are you looking at? What are you doing now? Apart from jetting off to Santorini, every other week? 

Simon
Oh, Santorini. I’ve only been once, as I mean once in university with my late wife, and then once again before she passed. I’ve just returned to work, actually in December, and my wife had passed on, so. 

Jimmy
I’m so sorry to hear that. 

Simon
Thank you. But I think work is a good reason to keep moving and writing too. I’m writing a book and probably about three or four novellas. Short novels or long short stories. 

It’s all conundrum but lots to do with senses of loss. In a way, writing Enigmas was a sense of closing off memories. I mean, of course I’ll always remember him. And the memories are much more than what the book can contain. But the process of writing distills, leaves some things out. It may distort if you don’t get it right, but it allows you a certain handle on something. 

So I think similarly, the emotion about loss and other things, I think needs as a writer to be dealt with. I’m quite hoping that the book won’t take 14 years like my novel took. Instead, perhaps next year or the year after. 

Jimmy
And these novellas that you are working on, I mean, they’re inspired or have come out of your wife’s you know. 

Simon
No, more generally, I think of a sense of loss. I don’t write directly. Enigmas is an unusual book for me. I really like fiction, I don’t mean it’s completely made up. There are real emotions. The DNA of various people are there, but like a petri dish, you put the DNA, swirl it around and it becomes a different combination. 

Even though this book is non-fiction, I will say I’ve taken some licence with it. You know, especially the last chapter to imagine discussions. 

Jimmy
With your father. 

Simon
And when he’s 48, 47 and about to die, and I’m 47, about to leave America, where I went for fellowship, this conversation obviously never happened in real life, and I’m 19 and he was 47, we had similar discussions and we discussed them around the dining tables. 

And I think every historian who reads it must feel a bit angry or upset. But I think as a creative writer and as a son, I felt it was the way of me trying to close things off, to imagine myself as I am at 47, talk to my father as kind of a peer and to understand much more empathetically of his journey. 

Jimmy
Yeah I remember reading a bit, being a little bit confused initially, but I don’t think any historian would blame you because quite clearly these things obviously couldn’t have happened. But you know, they are your attempt to deal with, to talk to your father as an adult and share with him your life. 

Simon
And another reason was that 1990 till now is such a big gap. In that chapter in the closing chapter, which is called “Coda, sort of an add on, I try to imagine what his thoughts would be about the present situation, and it’s actually very lucky I managed to access a report he wrote about America, and he visited there on the Eisenhower Fellowship for six months on government leave. So really, those are some of his words, actual words that I picked up from the report. 

Jimmy
You know, Simon, I want to thank you for coming down. Thank you for writing this book as well because anyone who wants to know more about your father will not get very much on Wikipedia. And so this book really delves into a very interesting life of a very interesting man cut short, obviously much too soon. And he could have contributed as a civil servant. I wish I had been in university attending his history lectures. 

Simon
Thanks so much. I would so, maybe I contextualise it if I may. I think I did write the book as a son, but I think this year, 2025 being SG60, I want to say that it’s not my claim that my father was an immortal, like another book about civil servants. But I think he is one of the many pioneers that we should be trying to acknowledge and contribute to in very different fields. 

And if the book can speak to help not just my generation, but the younger ones much younger than me, help them understand and enter into the world of the pioneers, that would be a great hope of mine. 

Jimmy
How does your son view this book because he didn’t know your father, obviously. 

Simon
I’m not sure if he has read all of it. His generation generally isn’t into 300-page books. 

Jimmy
All right. Okay. 

Simon
I had some good feedback from others of his generation who have read it. And I’m astonished that some really young 14-year-olds have read the book 

Jimmy
Oh, really? 

Simon
I was surprised. My belief is generally that a book will find an audience and you just don’t know exactly what it is. 

Jimmy
Simon, I want to thank you for coming on the show and talking about this book. I wish you good luck with your upcoming project, your novellas. 

To learn more about Tay Seow Huah, please read Simon’s book, Enigmas: Tay Seow Huah, My Father, Singapore’s Pioneer Spy Chief, which you can buy at major bookstores because we want to support all the existing bookstores there are in Singapore. But also, please, borrow from the library, if for any reason you can’t find them in the bookstores, because obviously, they fly off the shelves. 

Simon, thank you very much for coming on the show. And it was a pleasure having you. 

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